So what's the future looking like?

[Meatsauce]

Now that Take Two has decided to take a wood chipper to one of the most beloved games in history, what's the future look like? 

Will they release the I.P so a more competent development team can build a successor?  

Will this forum go away? 

Do they own the rights to KSP1?

I've read that this is part of a pattern. Over-promise, under-deliver, and then cut & run with the money.

What an embarrassing disaster. I feel bad for what this incompetent studio did to Mr. Falanghe's dream, and I think we all deserve some answers. 

Edited May 5 by Meatsauce

[Infinite Aerospace]

5 minutes ago, Meatsauce said:

Now that Take Two has decided to take a wood chipper to one of the most beloved games in history, what's the future look like? 

Will they release the I.P so a more competent development team can build a successor?  

Will this forum go away? 

Do they own the rights to KSP1?

I've read that this is part of a pattern. Over-promise, under-deliver, and then cut & run with the money.

What an embarrassing disaster. I feel bad for what this incompetent studio did to Mr. Falanghe's dream, and I think we all deserve some answers. 

We don't know at this point whether Kerbal Space Program is ceasing development.

 

Whether the intellectual property will be handed from Intercept Games to another group, is another unknown but this is a distinct possibility given what Mike said, and the fact the development branches are still being regularly updated on Steam.

 

I would assume they own the rights to Kerbal Space Program in its entirety. So I don't think the forum will disappear as it's still relevant.

 

The whole notion of over-promise, under-deliver and running off with the money isn't really applicable because if the game dies, right now then Take-Two are going to be losing money, not gaining.

 

I don't really have any disagreement with the final part, though I'm not sure incompetent is the right word as such. Kerbal II was meant to write the mistakes of it's predecessor and is in turn very differently coded, perhaps achieving this proved a lot more challenging than originally anticipated.

[PopinFRESH]

7 minutes ago, Meatsauce said:

Now that Take Two has decided to take a wood chipper to one of the most beloved games in history, what's the future look like? 

Will they release the I.P so a more competent development team can build a successor?  

Will this forum go away? 

Do they own the rights to KSP1?

I've read that this is part of a pattern. Over-promise, under-deliver, and then cut & run with the money.

What an embarrassing disaster. I feel bad for what this incompetent studio did to Mr. Falanghe's dream, and I think we all deserve some answers. 

Who knows

Surely not; possibly would sell it for more than they paid for it + (assuming) their net loss on the development thus far

Probably not considering it is also the forum for KSP1 and that will still remain available for sale

Yes, they bought the IP which includes KSP

I don't believe this is a matter of being part of a pattern. I think this is solely due to the incompetence of the development team and consistently failing to deliver on milestones within any reasonable timeframe.

Concurred. Very disappointing. 

4 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

<snip>though I'm not sure incompetent is the right word as such. Kerbal II was meant to write the mistakes of it's predecessor and is in turn very differently coded, perhaps achieving this proved a lot more challenging than originally anticipated.

Incompetence means lacking the competence to do something; or in another definition "lack of ability to do something successfully or as it should be done". I think it is clear that the development team lacked the ability to successfully deliver on the product as described/shown since the 2019 trailer.

[Infinite Aerospace]

5 minutes ago, PopinFRESH said:

Who knows

Surely not; possibly would sell it for more than they paid for it + (assuming) their net loss on the development thus far

Probably not considering it is also the forum for KSP1 and that will still remain available for sale

Yes, they bought the IP which includes KSP

I don't believe this is a matter of being part of a pattern. I think this is solely due to the incompetence of the development team and consistently failing to deliver on milestones within any reasonable timeframe.

Concurred. Very disappointing. 

Incompetence means lacking the competence to do something; or in another definition "lack of ability to do something successfully or as it should be done". I think it is clear that the development team lacked the ability to successfully deliver on the product as described/shown since the 2019 trailer.

*Lacked the ability to do it in (insert time frame).

But overall it does seem that it was, slowly but surely coming together, that however might have passed some arbitrary deadline.

[PopinFRESH]

1 minute ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

*Lacked the ability to do it in (insert time frame).

But overall it does seem that it was, slowly but surely coming together, that however might have passed some arbitrary deadline.

I don't think it is some "arbitrary deadline". They aren't working for free; and thus the time/pace of delivering on their milestones needs to be at least at a rate that is forecastable to be a net positive with rational sales projections. You have to keep in mind that it should be clear that the original intention was the be releasing a feature complete game in 2020. They (IG being largely the same individuals from StarTheory at the time) failed to deliver that within their projected timeframe. After moving to IG, they extended that projection by another year and failed to deliver within their projected timeframe yet again. Rinse and repeat multiple additional times. The game has been in development since roughly the end of 2017/early 2018. That is more than 6 years of development costs and they are/were still moving at a glacial pace with likely at least another 3+ years needed at their current pace to deliver on what was pitched.

To me, that doesn't sound like "doing something successfully or as it should be done".

[TLTay]

Last I checked, nobody knows anything and nobody from the company is talking at all.

I presume at this point the next major news will be given at the T2 quarterly earnings report in two weeks, and that any info given will be carefully scripted and tailored to the only group of people the company actually cares about at the end of the day: the shareholders.

[LittleBitMore]

I think Vanamonde confirmed in the Ask the Forum Moderators thread in Kerbal Network that the forums won't be shutting down because of this, and should be online for a while. I don't have a link because my phone heavily disagrees with this forum and it's a miracle I'm able to make this post

[Vanamonde]

3 hours ago, LittleBitMore said:

I think Vanamonde confirmed in the Ask the Forum Moderators thread in Kerbal Network that the forums won't be shutting down because of this, and should be online for a while. 

I was confirming that this is what we were told. The moderators have no information that the forum members do not. 

[LittleBitMore]

1 hour ago, Vanamonde said:

I was confirming that this is what we were told. The moderators have no information that the forum members do not. 

oh ok, thanks for clearing this up

[Scarecrow71]

10 hours ago, Meatsauce said:

what's the future look like? 

In a word...bleak.

[KerikBalm]

The higher ups knew this was coming, they were not surprised and could have planned for it.

The facts that they aren't doing damage control and didn't already have reassuring statements ready suggests that they don't care.

If they still intended to develop the product and get more sales from it, they would care.

QED: the game is dead

[pandaman]

1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

The higher ups knew this was coming, they were not surprised and could have planned for it.

The facts that they aren't doing damage control and didn't already have reassuring statements ready suggests that they don't care.

If they still intended to develop the product and get more sales from it, they would care.

QED: the game is dead

By 'higher ups' who do you mean?

It is of course possible that Nate and others at his level knew offically, or suspected that changes were coming.  And they would not be able to mention it publicly or to staff even if so. 

There is also a chance that they were only informed at the same time, or only shortly before, everyone else - like hours, or days at most.

[Alpha_star]

18 hours ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

*Lacked the ability to do it in (insert time frame).

But overall it does seem that it was, slowly but surely coming together, that however might have passed some arbitrary deadline.

I agree. They are doing real stuff despite all the hate, but not sure if the game would recover from this month's incident and continue going like it did.

Still, the game is recieveing updates so I would suspect that at least some kind of development is going on, the game for at least now isn't completely dead.

Edited May 6 by Alpha_star

[chefsbrian]

2 hours ago, Alpha_star said:

I agree. They are doing real stuff despite all the hate, but not sure if the game would recover from this month's incident and continue going like it did.

Still, the game is recieveing updates so I would suspect that at least some kind of development is going on, the game for at least now isn't completely dead.

Mentioned this before and I'll mention it again, don't assume branch updates are indicative of anything. Continuous Integration/Deployment and Nightly builds are a normal thing, especially in multi-branch development. Using steam to sync and distribute them saves a huge pile of headaches for testing, so a lotta the pipelines point right into it. Even if the system is 'smart' and only builds on changes and not schedules, downstream requirements from any of the various sources they're likely integrating themselves would trigger as much.

While I wish that activity meant anything, it unfortunately really doesn't tell us a single thing about the state of operations.

[KerikBalm]

8 hours ago, pandaman said:

By 'higher ups' who do you mean?

The ones involved in making the decision.

They could have planned a statement and damage control to safeguard the future value of their game. They didn't. Their actions imply they are unconcerned about future sales of KSP2, and thus the reasonable conclusion is that they're investing nothing more in it.

It's dead, after the <60 days left on the employee contracts

[Fizzlebop Smith]

Trying to drop a link in a few of the threads where this is being discussed. My hopes for KSP2 are kinda squashed, and my biggest gripe is a lack of clear and open communication. 

We largely received PR & marketing material as our forms of communication. I am attempting to initiate change with Steams EA policy.

I am Advocating an EA oversight / review committee. Once enough people have lereaged legitimate complaints, Valve would be *compelled* to actively investigate and take some form of action

 

This is probably blind optimism regarding anything actually happening... but please sign it. If you feel that EA has gotten away from the intended communication / fund indy goal.

I think it is more often used to gauge market viability but that's just my own thought.

Here is the link

https://www.change.org/p/steam-early-access-reform-advocating-more-oversight-accountability

If you know of other communities of gamers disillusioned with a certain developer.. please pass the link among those circles as well.

I am hoping that there can be some avenue outside of the customer support / chain of links to fill out.

Just a simple pipeline to register complaints, submit argument / proof.. with this potentially viewed on the page as well.

Edited May 6 by Fizzlebop Smith

[Scarecrow71]

1 minute ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Trying to drop a link in a few of the threads where this is being discussed.

I would highly advise to not spam the same link across multiple threads.  While I'm not a mod or admin, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't like you doing that.  If it's that important, create a new thread.

[PDCWolf]

So, for those not from the states (like me lol), here's the time in the US at the moment this post is made. It's still somewhat early if an announcement were to come.

 

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

As the master MJ once said, they don’t really care about us. 

IF we hear a thing, I expect it’s Friday as usual. 

[Meecrob]

21 hours ago, LittleBitMore said:

phone heavily disagrees with this forum

LOL

[pandaman]

42 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

The ones involved in making the decision.

They could have planned a statement and damage control to safeguard the future value of their game. They didn't. Their actions imply they are unconcerned about future sales of KSP2, and thus the reasonable conclusion is that they're investing nothing more in it.

It's dead, after the <60 days left on the employee contracts

Not going to disagree with you on any of that. 

A small sliver of possibility that a 'rescue package' of some sort is in the pipeline, but I do tend to think it's over and done, perhaps with a final update to wrap it up, if one was nearly ready to go.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

26 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I would highly advise to not spam the same link across multiple threads.  While I'm not a mod or admin, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't like you doing that.  If it's that important, create a new thread.

Pretty much done. Something like this only gains relevant attention if it's in right subthread. As it does not pertain directly to KSP2, I would have to post it somewhere next to my fan fiction. (OR My reasoning for injecting into 3 conversations)

Considering how many concurrent threads were discussing identical subject matter I used *spam* I'm a very loose sense. 

However, like with all posts.. you / or others are welcome to report.